Category Archives: Shadow Mountain

Mountains, Plants, Poetry, Shadow Mountain, Wild Neighbors

Mountains

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Monday gratefuls: Rock fish. Panko. Mixed vegetables. Potatoes. Cooking. The Ancient Brothers. Psychedelics. Colorado. Leaning into the new psychedelic era. My green back yard. Vince. Pine pollen on the driveway. The start of allergy season for me. Cold Mountain. My character for acting class. October 8th. Men and aging. Men and grief. A high blue Sky. The curve of Black Mountain. The solidity of Shadow Mountain underneath me. Maxwell Creek and Shadow Mountain Brook carrying water off of Shadow Mountain.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The treadmill

One brief shining: A deep sadness on reading in the Colorado Sun of the huge numbers of Elk, Mule Deer, and other wild neighbors who died over the winter due to starvation caused by the very snows which we all celebrated with the Colorado mantra we need the water and yes we do but at this cost I don’t know.

 

After reading that article the deep sadness came over me as I realized it might explain why the bull Elks have not been back for my Dandelions. Imagining them lying dead of starvation somewhere on Black Mountain. I hope I’m wrong, yet this is the first time since 2019 they’ve not shown up when the Dandelions were in bloom. It filled my heart to see their big bodies at rest after a meal. To watch them put their heads down and clip off the Dandelions and their greens. To stare as they jumped so easily from one side of the fence to the other. Perhaps some of their children will find my back. I’m leaving my gates open now, too. No more dogs to contain. Let the wild critters in.

Watching those three grow from younger and smaller Bulls to their majestic full size made seeing them each year even more special. Like everyone one up here, well, most everyone, I want our wild neighbors to thrive, live their best lives. Seeing those Bulls over a period of years gave me a personal glimpse into their lives. Like cousins you see once a year at Thanksgiving I saw them grow, got to know which one was twitchy, which one would spend the night here, which ones would leave and come back the next day.

 

Below are three poems attributed to Hanshan, or Cold Mountain. From this site

Translated by A. S. Kline © Copyright 2006 All Rights Reserved.

This work may be freely reproduced, stored and transmitted, electronically or otherwise, for any non-commercial purpose.

 

Where’s the trail to Cold Mountain?

Cold Mountain? There’s no clear way.

Ice, in summer, is still frozen.

Bright sun shines through thick fog.

You won’t get there following me.

Your heart and mine are not the same.

If your heart was like mine,

You’d have made it, and be there!

 

 

A thousand clouds, ten thousand streams,

Here I live, an idle man,

Roaming green peaks by day,

Back to sleep by cliffs at night.

One by one, springs and autumns go,

Free of heat and dust, my mind.

Sweet to know there’s nothing I need,

Silent as the autumn river’s flood.

 

 

I traveled to Cold Mountain:

Stayed here for thirty years.

Yesterday looked for family and friends.

More than half had gone to Yellow Springs.

Slow-burning, life dies like a flame,

Never resting, passes like a river.

Today I face my lone shadow.

Suddenly, the tears flow down.

Feelings, Fourth Phase, Judaism, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain

The Sacred

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Trips becoming more and more real. Vince, my man. Kat. More connected, more grateful than ever. Tom. Mary. Sarah and BJ. Kate and the sweet picture with my daughter-in-law. Kep, my furry friend, a blessed memory. Rigel, too. Gertie, Vega. The Colorado companions. Cleaning off the art table. Getting back to painting. Sumi-e. Korean. Our journey around the sun, through the galaxy, and with the Milky Way itself. All the wild Babies out there right now, learning about life and its wonders, its perils.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Life finds a way

One brief shining: Water amazes me in every way liquid solid steam all different the liquid and the steam states capable of powering engines, generating Electricity, carving Mountains, carrying nourishment from one Continent to another, aqua vita not only whisky but aqua vita, a metaphor for the flow of ch’i and the reality of the flow of ch’i, either fresh or salty a wonder on which to float, in which to dive, over which to paddle cradled in Lakes and Ponds and Rivers and Oceans, delivered by pumps and pipes, everyday necessary, water, wow.

 

Had a down day in the afternoon again. Watching too much TV. Not tackling household tasks. Then I thought. Wait a minute. Yesterday I met with friends for breakfast (even though they didn’t show up, I did), had my car detailed, read many more Cold Mountain poems. Read some other poets of the Rivers and Mountains school of Chinese poetry. My character study began to take shape. Read two chapters in the excellent book God is Here. Made connections with Keshet (rainbow), the Israeli travel agency.

Still on the old achievement treadmill once in a while. Maybe more than once in a while. Enough, already. And I mean ENOUGH already! I’ve done enough, have enough, am enough. Always. No matter what I do or don’t do. I am. Or better I am becoming. Without the lace and frills of degrees or salary or salutes or celebrations.

I’m OK, You’re OK. The World’s OK. To go back in time to the self-help cliches of the early 70’s. This is the day the big bang has made let us rejoice and be glad in it.

 

God is Here takes our perceptions shaped by the word God and puts them through the metaphorical ringer. Changing them, adding to them, recognizing the metaphors as signals for new ways of approaching the sacred, the divine. Though I’m on board with new ways of describing what we mean when we use the word God or its other names like Elohim, Hashem, Adonai, YHVH, I still feel like we’re holding the wrong end of the stick. In other words I think we should talk about why water has a sacred valence. Air. Fire. Earth. Humans. Trees. Rocks. Dogs. Cows. Bacilli. Why do we need to fill in the vacuum created by the word God? Why not acknowledge the sacred nature of all things and learn how to talk about divinity itself in their terms. This is neither panpsychism nor pantheism nor panentheism. This is a version of animism.

 

Holding some disappointment that the Elk Bulls have not come. At least not when I was looking. I’ve held off having the yard mowed to preserve their favorite food. I miss seeing them.

 

Jefferson County, Judaism, Politics, Shadow Mountain, Travel

Silver threads

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Shirley waste. A solid workout, resistance & cardio. A weighted blanket. An electric shaver. Joe Pickett on TV. Mark’s new apartment. Psilocybin spores on the way. Reading the Rivers and Mountains poets of China. Finding my character. Cold Mountain. The Threshold ritual. Nights out. Booked flight to Israel. Oct. 25 thru Nov 10th. Excited. Getting some tips from a friend of Tom’s. Will probably buy Korea tickets this week or early next. On the road again.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Travel

One brief shining: Violet who served me breakfast said my hat and my shirt made a nice outfit which I assured her was totally coincidental she laughed as if that were not possible and I’d made an attempt at modesty later she looked at my book, Birchers, and asked me what genre was my favorite hers she offered was love stories if the book doesn’t make me cry I don’t like it.

 

Got hungry while writing, realized I had little I wanted in the house so I took myself to the Conifer Cafe. That’s three times including last Saturday. Unusual. Got to make a grocery order, get some breakfast variety available. Evening meals, I’m good.

Was gonna go to the synagogue last night for Richard Levine and Rabbi Jamie’s conversation about gun violence. Didn’t. No good reason except I didn’t want to drive to Evergreen or get home late. Late being 9:30 or 10. Acting class on Tuesday found me hitting the bed at 10:10. Don’t like that.

 

Finally cracked the code for booking my flight. Get in at midnight. Stay in Tel Aviv that night, then a taxi to the group hotel in Jerusalem the next day. A friend of Tom’s had recommended Eddie, a tour guide, but he’s booked. Not sure whether I need a guide or not, but he sounded worth exploring. Korea in late August will see me in the Far East. Israel the Near East. Asia is a big continent.

 

How bout those Nuggets? Jokic and Murray both with triple-doubles. I’m taking the Nuggets in 5. Next Grand Prix is in Canada.

 

I’ve been reading books like Fever in the Heartland, Why Liberalism Failed, Birchers, Christian Nationalism, Chosen Country: A Rebellion in the West so you don’t have to. Got Regime Change by Patrick Deneen in the mail yesterday. He also authored Why Liberalism Failed. Regime Change offers a road map to a post-liberal future. He says.

Not in my lifetime. He believes liberalism has two Satanic horns one Democrat and one Republican but still festooning the head of his fiery majesty and moving in unison when he thrusts his pitchfork. In brief he believes both Democrats and Republicans are classical liberal parties bent on expanding the amount of space each individual has for self-expression. Republicans work toward economic freedom and international markets while Democrats expand social realms like sexuality, racial engagement in the demos, and programs for the poor.

Deneen sees right through their often bitter electoral contests (academic x-ray vision) to focus on their mutual expansion of government as the guarantor of free markets here and abroad, human rights based on sexual and racial differences, leveling programs for those left behind economically.

I imagine if woke wasn’t already taken, he’d be saying Wake Up America.

There are many threads here. Beginning to come together. Later.

Acting, Jefferson County, Mountains, Shadow Mountain

The Slow Crossing

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: The Mule Deer in the back. The merry, merry month of June. Tal. Joan. Lid. Rebecca. The Bacchae. The Iceman Cometh. Tennessee Williams. The Dybbuk. Phaedra. Racine. House of Leaves. Mark Adams. Tip of the Iceberg. Issa. Haiku. Theater. Acting. Building a character study, presenting it in a project. The gospel singing at CBE last night. The Great Sol is so so lit. Trains. Booking a flight to Tel Aviv. Mark in an apartment. In Hafar. Those two Elk along the road last night.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Visitation of the Mule Deer

One brief shining: Those Elk the three one with only one antler come now to eat Dandelions instead this morning it was one Mule Deer inside my fence her buddies looking at her from outside it while my heart admitted mild disappointment wondering when those big Bulls would get here having come four years in a row I enjoy their visit.

 

A definite shift, a threshold crossing under slow way. I’ve added go anywhere days to my calendar. Yesterday after a solo breakfast at Primo’s I turned onto 285 headed toward Bailey instead of back toward home. Took the first exit and turned left instead of right to Staunton State Park. S. Elk Creek Road. What a beautiful drive. Elk Creek meanders back and forth across the road doing ox bows in a large Meadow just off 285 then crosses to become a fast moving wide Stream creating white Water as it smashes itself against Rocks again and again.

The homes on the first stretch had a similar style. They used the bark board cut at a saw mill when starting to mill a whole tree as siding. They perched on solid slabs of Rocky Mountain basalt (I think) looking down on the action generated by the Stream below. The Valley sides are exposed Rock in many spots. Tall Ponderosa Pine throw shade at the road. The road itself vacillates between asphalt, gravel, and graded rocky Soil. I had to turn around fifteen minutes into my drive because two county road levelers took up the whole of a barely two lane stretch of road.

Elk Creek road is one of my new favorite places up here. That’s the way of the Mountains. You learn the roads you use a lot, the Mountains and Streams, the Valleys, the way homes arrange themselves down in the Valley and up in the Mountains. You begin to imagine that’s the way the Mountains are. But no. Only an exit away a totally different experience exists, one you would never know unless you turned down that road, drove along it for awhile.

That’s true of Blue Creek Road which interests Brook Forest Drive. Maybe four miles toward Evergreen on a road I take several times a week. I turned up Blue Creek Road six months ago. Wow. Open meadows. Large horse farms. Big houses. Each road has its own character, a character defined by the different folds and peaks and Valleys and Streams that Mountains create.

Learning, exploring. Even in my own smallish section of the Rockies. That’s part of the slow way of the crossing.

 

GeekWorld, Mountains, Plants, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate

Day to day

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Great Sol. Light on the Needles of the Lodgepoles out my window. Black Mountain clear against blue Sky. The Elk Calves and their Moms on Lower Shadow Mountain Drive. That big Mama Bear and her two Cubs on Warhawk. It’s kiddy rearing time for our wild neighbors. Airline Websites. Travel details. Early Spring weather. Waiting for the sudden jump to Summer. Dandelions. Those three Elk Bulls. Waiting on their arrival. Soon. Travel agents. Crows and Ravens. Canada Jays. That fat Chipmunk. The Rabbits who live under the Shed. Mountain Lions.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Bear Cubs

One brief shining: In the Spring here in the Mountains Flowers emerge later Trees leaf out later but the Elk birth their Calves, the Mule Deer their Fawns, the Moose their Calves, the Mountain Lion their Kittens, the Black Bears their Cubs, the Fox their Kits while the Mountain Streams rush down, carrying the Water of Snow Melt and later Rains, while the temperatures fluctuate between warm and cold, while the days become longer and the nights shorter the Mountains and the Forests become a nursery for our wild neighbors.

 

In the morning I turn off my electric blanket, close the bedroom window, pick up my life alert button from its charging station, unhook my cellphone from its cable, turn off the oxygen concentrator, and go out into the next room for my hearing aid. I take my first pill of the day, synthroid for my funky thyroid, washing it down with some tap water. I set my phone’s alarm for one hour after the time I took they synthroid. That alerts me to take my morning meds which include my chemotherapy. Grabbing my phone I head upstairs to write Ancientrails in the home office. I often finish around the time my alarm rings, some days, like today writing takes longer.

Today I had to strip the sheets from the bed so Ana can put clean sheets on, arrange the blankets. Also I had to refill my seven day plastic pill containers. Took up some of the time I would have been writing.

I’m very aware of how dependent on electricity I am. Blanket. Charging for my phone, my life alert button, my hearing aid. The oxygen concentrator. And, medications. I’m alive thanks to the batches of pills I throw down each morning and evening. Life with cancer and hypertension. Life up high. 8,800 feet.

Bear comes next week to do the annual maintenance on my Kohler generator. It kicks in when heavy snows or lightning strikes take out my feed from C.O.R.E. Without it I would have no well-water, no cooking on my induction stove, no lights, no computer access. Electricity is the chi for my day-to-day life.

My life is quite a distance from the hibernating Bear in a rocky cleft or the Mountain Lion in their den. I am softer, less resilient than they are. Even though I can find food perhaps more easily, I require an automobile for the task while they rely only on their paws and their instinct. Which of us is more likely to survive global warming?

 

Family, Politics, Shadow Mountain, Travel, US History

Small Town Life

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Saturday gratefuls: Mark deep in the sands of the Arabian Peninsula. Mary coming here on June 16th. Korea. My son’s new apartment. Huge. Working on details for Israel pre-tour. A gray Sky. An El Nino on its way. Better weather for us here in the Mountains. Acting class. My monologue. Hunting for restaurants in Jerusalem. Traveling. An Ellis family trait. Marina Harris. Ana. Furball Cleaning. Taking myself out for breakfast. Aspen Perks. Reading Birchers. Finished Fever in the Heartland. Reading One Thousand Nights and the Mahabarata. Took a break from Korean, back to it today.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: This year in Jerusalem.

One brief shining moment: Gray skies put a shroud over Black Mountain and the bowed Branches of the Lodgepoles seem subdued this weather so different from June of years past when hot dry Winds raced across Shadow Mountain drying out the Grasses and the Needles of the Lodgepoles pushing Smokey the Bear to move his pointing paw into the high or extreme Fire danger positions now we Mountain dwellers can relax a bit as his paw remains where it has been since Winter-on low.

 

Taking a break here. Off to Aspen Perks with Birchers.

Met Murphy and Pete again. I slid into the booth with them. Murphy’s a South Carolina transplant as of four years ago. A handyman, but obviously well educated. He’s got a New England accent, slight, but as he said his wife reminds him he was lucky enough to marry a Southern gal. She’s a horse trainer currently back in South Carolina working with horses they still own. They sold their property but kept some horses. Near a little town just across from Augusta, Georgia in South Carolina.

Pete’s around my age, maybe a bit older. He’s a native Coloradan. Born in Denver. A happy right winger to Murphy’s gregarious lefty. Just before we got up to go I said my son was in the military. Pete had indicated he was, too. Yeah I said I was an anti-Vietnam war protester and my boy goes in the military. Pretty sure I saw Pete wince but he was headed up to pay and we were all leaving. Some stories remain fraught. Will have to have that conversation with Pete next time.

Nice to make a random connection up here. Like with Kat. Whom all three of us agreed is a top of the line waitress. She warned me, while they could hear, that these two are dangerous. Small town life.

 

Almost getting ready to spend real money on the Israel trip. I’ll go 6 days early. Explore Jerusalem on my own and take a before the tour starts trip to Petra with others who want that as a side journey. First step is an airline ticket. Then travel insurance. After that the two installments for the group tour.

 

Saw the new apartment near Osan. 4 bedrooms. Looks even bigger with little to no furniture in it. My daughter in law sent me a video. Murdoch followed her often showing up in the shots.

 

With Birchers and Fever in the Heart Land I’m beginning to get a great historical perspective on the odd and fraught political moment in which we find ourselves. A clear lesson is that there is no underestimating the darkness of the human heart when it fills with fear and narrows its intake valves.

 

Acting, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Judaism, Shadow Mountain

What a character

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Alan. Noi. Lid. Joan. Marilyn. Rebecca. Tal. The character study acting class. Deborah and Abby, too. My passport, expiring 2029. The Conifer Cafe, tamale and egg with green chili. Ode, trippin’ thru Colorado. Psilocybin spores. On their way. Happy Camper. How do I feel. Or, personal inventory. The amphitheater at CBE. Finding a hermit character. Stretching the Self. My son and his wife. Murdoch. My dishwasher. Refrigerator. Induction stove. Sink. Solar Panels. Mini-splits, heat pumps.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Being There with Peter Sellars

One brief shining: We sat in a semi-circle in the social hall of Congregation Beth Evergreen the Rabbi’s son teaching us to move as an ensemble, to balance the space, and how to sit with a cracked egg running down our head loosening each part of the body it touched, running our tongues around our mouths to taste our last food, sniffing trying to smell ourselves, putting our hands on our knees to notice how it felt to the touch, listening listening listening as usual I could not hear much, finally opening our eyes and seeing something we hadn’t seen before looking looking looking closing our eyes and drawing it in our mind’s eye a Lee Strasberg exercise outside the usual Stanford Meisner work Tal prefers.

 

Yes. Back at it again. Acting class. Third one with Tal. I skipped the Winter semester. This one is character study. Met Noi a local artist and photographer. Lid, who identifies as non-binary and has their happy place in a city park in Nebraska. Alan is in it, coming in a bit late and when asked what his happy place was said having breakfast with Charlie. Joan Greenberg, the author of several published novels including her most well-known, I Never Promised You A Rose Garden. Like Alan a long time member of CBE. Rebecca a former oil and gas lawyer is also in the class as she was in the two other classes I took. Deborah and Abby also in the class were not there last night.

At some point we all have to pick a character. Tal last night went through archetypes often used in playwriting classes: the Caregiver, the Hero, the Sage, the Jester, the Outlaw, the Ruler, the Member, the Lover, the Creator, the Explorer. Alan would like to study Lear. I’m interested in a hermit character, a Chinese scholar/sage type. Wanting to explore myself and my current situation. Might work this character study into my planned Crossing the Threshold ritual on October 8th.

These classes push me into a different place. More emotional. More thoughtful about my body as an instrument of artistic expression. Into the Charlie who took many theater classes as an undergraduate. Who did modern dance. Acted in high school and seminary. Who went with the family to Stratford, Ontario many summers to Shakespeare on the Festival stage. Who had season tickets so many years to the Guthrie. All the memorable performances there. A place of modest discomfort sometimes. Growing edge.

BTW: my happy place is my home.

Acting, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Great Wheel, Health, Hermitage, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, Sport, Weather +Climate

Life in its brilliance and in its everdayness

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: My passport. The post office. Kristie today. Acting class tonight. The Heat and the Nuggets. The Monaco Grand Prix. Max Verstappen. Fernando Alonso. Esteban Oco. My son and his wife. Fever in the Heart Land. Thanks, Ode. A quiet, restorative Memorial Day. A good workout. Korea on the schedule. Israel getting closer to dialed in. Ecuador still in the planning phase. All the poems coming in from the Ancient Brothers. Ritual ideas.  Acting class tonight. Diane in Indiana.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Great Sol, lighting up a Shadow Mountain Morning

One brief shining: Or, the Great Soul, Sol, source of light, source of power, source and sustainer of life itself why shouldn’t the Human soul, the Animal soul, the Plant soul, the Mountain soul be like their progenitor brilliant, a source of sustenance and warmth, a source of chi, a source of energy, yet every so often eclipsed by the turning of our inner lives, still there yes, waiting only for what Jews call teshuvah, a return to the ohr, the light of the sacred within us and to our sacred path, this orbit around our true God.

 

Got to get going, pick up my passport from its safe spot at the Ken Caryl branch of Wells Fargo. Safety deposit box. In case of fire, down the hill. Going to eat breakfast out, come home and try to take down the last outstanding bill, then talk to Kristie, my oncology P.A.

I’ve succeeded in reducing $14,000 worth of medical bills to $240. A victory although one I shouldn’t have had to win. One refractory $429 bill. Turned over for collection. Nope. Have disputed it, am disputing it, will dispute it until they back down. Could tell you the story, but trust me it’s only about one hand not knowing what the other one is doing.

A day of life chores. You know the kind. They come up like whack a mole. As you finish off one round of them, another few arise. By 76 you’ve seen them come and go, talking of Michelangelo. Even the most persistent and troublesome of them get dealt with, fade into the blob of things past no longer necessary to consider. I wear my trousers rolled while whacking each mole.

 

I’m loving the Sunshine, the blue Sky, the warmth of approaching Summer. Thought  yesterday though. Would I love the summer without the backdrop of winter? Could I tell the good without the bad? Would I know beauty without the ugly? I know we wouldn’t need a word for justice without injustice. Rasputin belonged to a Russian sect that believed the more you sinned the more God was able to bestow grace upon you. That’s the sort of rationalization that makes for a strange life.

 

Nuggets versus the Heat. I’m excited. Might try to find a tv package that will let me watch the NBA finals. I love basketball. And F1. Watched the whole Monaco Grand Prix yesterday. Wow. That Max Verstappen. Is. A. Monster.

 

Asia, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Hermitage, Judaism, Korea, Politics, Shadow Mountain, US History, World History

Introversion. Remembering.

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Monday gratefuls: The Indy 500. The Monaco Grand Prix. Grandsons. Granddaughters. Kate, missing her this Memorial Day. May be for those fallen in war, yes, but I take it too for those fallen from that most terminal of diseases: life. A second bright blue Sky in a row. The thirst quenched Lodgepoles green and healthy. Aspens beginning to Leaf out. The Iris emerging from the Soil. Kate’s Lilacs have bud’s. Korea. A high apartment. Moving day for my son and his wife. Baseball, America’s game, like basketball, now played all over the world. Neither though as big as soccer.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Gabe, his sweet smile

One brief shining: Sometimes I doubt my introversion since I enjoy being with people, talking, listening, laughing, learning then I have a week like last week Dismantling Racism, lunch with Marilyn and Irv and Heidi, dogsitting Leo, getting Kep’s remains, Rabbi Jamie, then Rebecca, Leslie’s funeral, Ode and Dennis that night, a missed massage due to traffic delays in Evergreen, mussar, breakfast with Alan in Denver, three hard workouts, and then baseball with Gabe even with some down time interspersed the emotional intensity of last week drained my social battery, left me with no charge and I thought oh I see yes you introverted guy.

 

Glad to have a full day here on Shadow Mountain with nothing to do. Saturday the same helped but baseball wore me out all over again. The driving. All the people. Those hard seats. Dealing with parking. Yeah. Fun, sure. But also. Oh, my.

Days with nothing on the calendar shine for me. I can work on Ancientrails, cook for myself, maybe do some chores. Read. Watch a movie. Hike. I’ve begun too putting these on my calendar: go anywhere days. Also days with nothing in them but days I can get up in the morning and drive to Gunnison, see the Black Canyon. Stay overnight somewhere if I want. Short trips, beginning to see Colorado. None yet but coming up this summer.

Today has these elements: breakfast, workout. Watch the Monaco Grand Prix on F1 TV. Recorded. Make some lunch or not. Dinner if not. Start reading Fever in the Heartland. Thanks, Ode. Get outside some.

 

A word about Memorial Day. Imagine all the graves, all over the world. The dead from wars of all kinds. Colonial wars. Wars for land, for slaves, for God and country, blood and soil. Wars of liberation. Wars between Kings, between countries, between tribes. Economic wars where the winners scoop up all the wealth and leave hardly any for the gleaners who work in filling station convenience stores, bag groceries, run the cash register at Walmart, Petsmart, Subway. We speak here of lives cut short, lives worn down death coming from exhaustion and depression.

Dennis Ice. Richard Lawson. Others from my high school killed in Vietnam. So. Damned. Senseless. Those WW I and II veterans who lie in Europe in the fields of Normandy, in the Argonne Forest, along the Maginot line, in Germany and Italy and northern Africa. The victims of the Holocaust. Also memorialized here this day.

We remember of course to acknowledge sacrifice, yes, but can we also remember to learn? I hope so.

 

 

Denver, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate

Mushrooms and friendships

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Beltane and the Shadow Mountain Moon

Friday gratefuls: That red robin bobbin outside my downstairs door. Conversations with two of my best buddies today, Tom and Alan. A sunny drive into Denver, down the hill and over to E. Evans Avenue, Lucille’s Creole Cafe. A Thunderstorm, then clearing. A gentle psilocybin trip, just waning. Growing old. Poetry about growing old. This house, Shadow Mountain Home.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Mushrooms and friendships

One brief shining: Thanks to Tom who nailed my blog voice as what it is, what I hope it is, that is a conversation with you, me sitting next to you or across the table, talking about my day, showing mine and always hoping you’ll show me yours.

 

A wee late getting started. Like I usually write this about 6:30 am and it’s just now 6:30 pm. We’ve had Rains and Rains. Still cool up here at night, and only warmish during the days. Fine with me. Could hit the continue playing without pause button. Except. I do enjoy a few fiery Summer days. Maybe a weeks worth as we tail off toward autumn.

These days I fill with two main activities, reading and conversing with friends or family. Evenings some tv. More reading. Workouts, yes. But that’s maintenance, taking the car into the shop for routine service. Will be some more hiking now that surfaces are less slippery and the Air a bit warmer.

As Tom observed this morning, it has been an emotional week. Leslie’s funeral, Mark and Dennis’ visit. Found myself weary yesterday. After mussar ended, I came home and sort of did a laying in ceremony myself. Depleted. Today though talking with Tom, then driving down the hill for breakfast with Alan I felt energized.

 

Took my remaining five psilocybin capsules after my nap. There was a bright golden haze on the meadow. For a couple of hours thereafter. Some tears when I walked by the expanded Iris bed after retrieving my mail. A bit of soulful time gazing at this old wrinkled visage in the upstairs bathroom mirror. A peaceful and reinforcing two or three hours. This is who I am now. And I’m more than good with that.

Enough. See you tomorrow at the usual time.